'Stationed' in Covent Garden

Terence Cooling

The Catholic Association of Performing Arts enacted Stationed, written by Terence Cooling and Nicholas Ward, a contemporary meditation on the Stations of the Cross at Corpus Christi Church, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden last night.

Cooling says that the young protagonist is not a Christian, yet finds himself renewed by the very essence of Christ's humanity - a humanity common to us all. Dressed as a priest, he kneels at the altar rail.A young man enters who says that his name, Yeshu, sounds "a bit like a sneeze".

He is a Jewish drama student on work experience,he says.

The initial humorous banter continues as the priest asks if he knows about the stations and Yeshu reels off a list of railway termini. Gradually he and the viewer are drawn into the chain of events leading to the crucifixion and the priest represents God.

Pilate is portrayed by Robin Marchal: "I had no choice" he declares,washing his hands. Ingrid Pitt portrays a dignified Mother Mary and Jimena Larraguivel brings consolation as a veiled Veronica.

One of the thuggish guards who strips Yeshu wears a Che Guevara T-shirt. Simon, played by Alistair Kelly, acts as the cross bearing Yeshu's arms aloft. Matthew Pinckney, a Rose Bruford School of Drama graduate, who played the part of Simon in the 2009 production, movingly conveys fear and sense of abandonment as Yeshu struggles to carry the cross and portrays real anguish as the nails are driven in until his last words, "it is finished".

He is then carried shoulder high down the Nave. Parish priest and CaAPA chaplain, Fr Alan Robinson moved forward to read an epilogue:

"Now I am everything and nothing.....

I become the Great Silence,
Out of this silence,softest sound,
A whisper of eternal gentleness
A wondrous new beginning..."

The remaining cast exited down the nave to the music of Leonard Cohen, "If it be Thy Will" whilst the drama student/Yeshu reappeared and was embraced by the priestly figure.

In 1966 Terence Cooling wrote the first Passion Play performed at Westminster Cathedral with a cast of 500, Stationed had a cast of eleven but nonetheless a powerful and reflective presentation.